


Name

by SpoonyLupin



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Cheesy, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, Friendship/Love, M/M, Male Bonding, Marauders Friendship, Marauders' Era, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-08
Updated: 2017-03-08
Packaged: 2018-09-30 21:47:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10173035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpoonyLupin/pseuds/SpoonyLupin
Summary: On the verge of their graduation from Hogwarts, Sirius and Remus share some of their fears about entering the "real world"...and perhaps a little bit more than that.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including, but not limited to, Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros. Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Sirius didn’t know what had awakened him. Peter’s obnoxious snoring, maybe, or the way James liked to thrash around in his sleep. Either way, Sirius was now wide awake, staring up at the dark crimson curtains surrounding his bed.

He found this happening more and more as the days went on - waking up in the middle of night and not being able to get back to sleep. Sirius thought he had grown accustomed to James’s and Peter’s noisy sleeping habits after nearly seven years, but they seemed to be interfering with Sirius’s sleep now more than ever.

The reason for it wasn’t lost on Sirius, but it was something he had never admitted to anyone, not even to any of his dorm mates. He was Sirius Black, after all - proud, confident, and brave. He didn’t _get_ scared.

Except now he was.

He shook his head, attempting to push those thoughts from his mind, and he turned over onto his left side. His eyes found a gap in the bed hangings, and his gaze traveled across the moonlit floor of their dormitory. It was then that he noticed that Remus’s bed hangings stood wide open, revealing an empty bed.

“Moony?” Sirius whispered. He frowned, sat up, and pushed his own curtains open. “Moony?” he asked again, louder this time. There was no answer, save for Peter’s incessant snoring and James shuffling around in his own bed.

It was strange for Remus to be out of bed at this time of night. He was a fairly sound sleeper and detested getting up before he absolutely had to.

Sirius got up, quickly crossed the room, and slowly opened the door. It squeaked loudly on its hinges, despite his best efforts to the contrary, but no one else in the room seemed to notice. Peter’s snoring went on and James remained silent for once.

Sirius descended the stairs into the common room, fully expecting Remus to be at one of the tables with about a million books and papers, revising for their upcoming N.E.W.T.s. The room stood empty, however, the previously roaring fire now nothing more than a few pale orange embers.

Pushing his hair back from his forehead, he called for Moony again, knowing there wouldn’t be an answer. Remus wasn’t there.

It was then that Sirius felt a tinge of worry settle into his stomach. Where could Remus have gone? He hated sneaking out and breaking the rules, especially since he had been made a prefect. He only did so when Sirius and the others coaxed him into it, and even then he had gone quite grudgingly, so he wouldn’t have gone anywhere on his own, would he?

Figuring there was only one way to find out, Sirius turned on his heel and hurried back up the stairs. He immediately went to James’s trunk and found that the Invisibility Cloak was missing. James always kept it in the same place, but it wasn’t there. James never minded the others borrowing it, but Sirius found it extremely odd that Remus might have taken it. Remus Lupin sneak out on his own with the cloak? It almost seemed laughable.

Sirius reached further down into James’s trunk until his fingers came into contact with a piece of parchment. Grabbing the Marauder’s Map, Sirius crossed the room and snatched his wand from his bedside table. He muttered the password and moved into the pillar of moonlight streaming through the window, waiting for the map to reveal itself.

Sirius’s eyes scanned the mostly still map until he found it - a dot labeled _Remus Lupin_ slowly rounding the lake.

“Moony, Moony, Moony…” Sirius hummed to himself. “Wonderful time to start breaking the rules, in our seventh year!”

He knew Remus was a big boy and could take care of himself, but Sirius felt compelled to go after him, just like he had felt compelled to find out where Remus was in the first place. Ever since their second year when they had found out Remus was a werewolf, Sirius had felt oddly overprotective of Remus. He couldn’t help it.

Sirius went to his trunk and pulled out some clothes.

~~~~~~~~~~

Remus hugged the Invisibility Cloak to his body, his shoes squeaking softly in the damp grass around the lake. The only other sounds were that of the water lapping gently against the shore and a few crickets chirping into the moonlit night.

The moon was almost perfectly round - tomorrow it would be full - casting a bright stream of silver light across the water. Remus hated to admit how pretty it could be at times.

Remus couldn’t believe how quickly the time had gone. It was already May of their seventh year. Tomorrow night’s full moon would be the last he and the Marauders would spend at Hogwarts. After that, everything would change.

It scared Remus to death to think about what life held for him outside of school. The others all had job offers, even Peter. They had all expressed interest in wanting to work for the Order of the Phoenix full time, so it seemed unlikely that they would take them, but at least they had the option. Nobody wanted to hire a werewolf.

Remus had thought about getting a job at some Muggle place as a last resort, but even if he found one, chances were it wouldn’t last. Employers wouldn’t be very sympathetic to an employee who had to take regular sick days every month, and coming into work with bruises after a full moon wouldn’t exactly help either.

He had been grateful and ecstatic when Dumbledore had offered him a place at Hogwarts, but now, what good would it do? Remus would pledge his allegiance to the Order, certainly, and what he had learned would certainly come in handy there, but Remus wouldn’t even be able to support himself. His parents were dead and they hadn’t exactly been rich either like the Blacks or the Potters.

Remus knew that Dumbledore, Sirius, and James would help him out if the need arose, but Remus wasn’t going to take anything from them if he could help it. He was an adult now and that meant he was supposed to be able to take care of himself as well.

Continuing on around the lake, Remus kept trying to make sense out of everything that was going through his mind - the overwhelming thoughts that had been keeping him awake for weeks now. It finally became too much tonight and he felt the need to take a walk, as much as he hated being out on the grounds after dark. He hated to think about what would happen if he got caught, but lying in bed and pretending to be asleep had gotten old long ago.

When Remus first heard footsteps behind him, his initial instinct was to throw the Invisibility Cloak over himself, but he didn’t. He didn’t feel like he needed to for reasons he couldn’t explain. Remus turned, squinting through the dark to see who was behind him.

“I found you,” came Sirius’s voice out of the shadows. It was several more seconds before he got close enough for Remus to see. Neither of them said anything for a long time, but then Sirius spoke again. “Moony, out on the grounds by himself after dark! I wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t see it with my own eyes.”

“I couldn’t sleep,” Remus whispered, even though there was no one else around to hear them.

“Join the club.”

“You either?”

Sirius shook his head, his long black hair picking up reflections of moonlight. “I saw your bed was empty and got worried.”

A small smirk passed over Remus’s lips. “You don’t have to check up on me, Padfoot.”

“I know, it’s just unlike you leave to Gryffindor tower in the middle of the night.” More silence fell, and Sirius was beginning to wonder just when things had gotten so awkward between them. “What are you doing here?” he asked, more to break the silence than to get an answer.

“I told you,” Remus said, turning and continuing to walk around the edge of the lake. Sirius followed, falling into step beside the werewolf.

“Tomorrow will be our last full moon here,” Remus finally said, his steps still not slowing. And then, almost as an afterthought, he mumbled, “My last full moon with the three of you.”

“Moony,” Sirius said, almost urgently, reaching for his friend’s shoulder, “you don’t think things are going to change, do you? I mean, just because we’re leaving school, we’re not going to abandon you for Merlin’s sake.”

Remus stopped and faced Sirius. He hadn’t intended on sharing his feelings with Sirius, but once Sirius’s hand has touched his shoulder, Remus felt like a floodgate had been opened. “James has made it quite clear that he wants to start a family with Lily once school is over,” Remus said. “I highly doubt she’ll want him leaving to run round with a werewolf once a month.”

“She loves you, she’s not going to care,” Sirius replied firmly. He snorted and went on, “You make it sound like James will be leaving to shag some random bird. If it’s just to help you through a transformation, Lily will be more than fine with it.”

“What about the next girl you’re with?” Remus asked. “I highly doubt she’ll even like you being friends with a werewolf, let alone leaving to spend nights with me. And any girl Peter happens to find, because I’m sure he will.”

“Moony…” Sirius knew exactly what Remus was getting at - that Sirius and Peter wouldn’t have any problem finding significant others just as James had, but the fact that Remus was a werewolf made it unlikely that he would.

“And that’s the way it should be,“ Remus said quickly, perhaps realizing that he had sounded a little bitter. “I don’t know why it makes me so uncomfortable to think about you guys spending full moons with me once we leave. It’s just…this is school. We’re supposed to do things like that here, but the three of you will have much more important things to worry about once we leave.”

Sirius shook his head. “Moony, you’re our friend. There’s _nothing_ more important than that! Especially now with this bloody war going on.”

“I think there is,” Remus said, but Sirius wasn’t exactly sure what he meant. “James starting a family with Lily _is_ more important than him spending full moons with me.” Sirius opened his mouth to protest, but Remus didn’t stop. “You may disagree with that, but that’s how _I_ feel. You, and James, and Peter starting your own lives and not having to take care of me all the time - that‘s important to _me_.”

“Remus,” Sirius said, sounding confused, “when was it ever about ‘taking care’ of you? We know you don’t like to be coddled. I thought it was…having fun.”

Remus clenched his teeth and turned his head to look out over the lake. “It was never fun for me, Padfoot. Sure, spending full moons with you is better than being by myself, but it’s never fun.”

Sirius sighed and pushed his hair back from his eyes in frustration. “I didn’t mean it that way. I _know_ it isn’t fun for you, but I thought this whole thing was about…making it better for you. Not taking care of you and not making it fun, just…better.”

“And you do, Padfoot,” Remus said sincerely. “You do, but I’d feel guilty if it interfered with your real lives. That’s what starts once we get out of here - real life - and I want you guys to worry about that, not me anymore.”

Sirius stared at him like he had already transformed into the wolf, a full twenty-four hours before the full moon. “You’re talking crazy, Moony. You know that, don’t you? It’s not like you’re an invalid on your deathbed needing constant care. It’s one night a month! I think we can spare that without it inferring with our lives _too_ much.”

“You’re not listening to me,” Remus said tiredly. “ _I_ feel guilty interrupting your lives at all. That may be irrational, but I can’t help it, I just do.”

There was a long pause; Sirius wasn’t entirely sure how to respond to that. “Well, what do you think we became Animagi for?! Just for the hell of it? Just so we can sit around and look nice? Except for Wormtail, of course - rats never look nice.”

“Will you please be serious for a moment?”

“I am!” Sirius cried, sounding frustrated. “Think about this from our point of view, would you? Do you think we would have wasted all that time becoming Animagi if we weren’t serious about wanting to spend full moons with you? Just because we’re leaving school doesn’t - shouldn’t - change anything. Why are you making it sound like our gifts to you are suddenly obsolete?”

Remus sighed, staring down at his shoes. “I didn’t mean that.” He bit at his lower lip and hesitated before facing his friend again. “I’ll always appreciate what the three of you did for me, but I just don’t want to bother you guys with this for the rest of our lives.”

Sirius smirked. “It’s not a bother, Moony. Honestly, when have you ever known me and James to do anything that was a _bother_?”

A small laugh escaped from Remus. “Never.”

Another moment of silence fell. Remus turned and started to walk away from Sirius, approaching the large shade tree at the edge of the lake. He leaned up against it, watching the nearly full moon through the gaps in the leaves above him.

Sirius followed, coming up being Remus and leaning up against the trunk of the tree as well. “What else is bothering you?”

“Everything!” Remus said, finally turning to look at him. Their faces were only a few inches apart, and Sirius could feel Remus’s warm breath against his cheek. Remus only held his gaze for a moment before looking out over the lake. “Leaving school. Having to be responsible for ourselves for once. I mean, there aren’t going to be any teachers coming after us to make sure we’re safe. We’ll be on our own.”

“Yeah,” Sirius agreed, the worry in his voice echoing Remus‘s. “We’re adults - that sounds so insane, doesn’t it?”

Remus snorted. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid too.”

“Just don’t let it get out,” Sirius said firmly. “It’ll ruin my reputation.”

The smile on Remus’s face slowly faded and he exhaled heavily. “It’s not like I want to be in school forever, but…it’s safe here. The war doesn’t seen so real. The biggest things we have to worry about right now are homework and exams.”

“And the fact that we’re running out of time to play pranks on Snivellus.”

Remus rolled his eyes. “Stop it.”

“What?”

“I’m trying to have a serious conversation with you and you keep making jokes!”

“Sorry.” Sirius swallowed hard. “It’s what I do when I’m nervous.”

“It’s what you do all the time.” Almost as an afterthought, Remus looked at Sirius again and asked, “Nervous about what?”

“Doing this.” Before Sirius could lose his nerve, he leaned forward and kissed Remus. Neither one of them moved and Sirius could only imagine what was going through Remus’s mind at the moment. However, the fact that Remus was still kissing him encouraged Sirius. He pressed his lips against Remus’s a little harder, parting them, but that was when Remus finally pulled away. He gasped, his eyes searching Sirius’s for some sort of answer.

Remus took several heavy breaths and shut his eyes before he got out, “Padfoot…just don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“ _This_!” Remus hissed, gesturing between them. He pulled away from the tree, taking a few steps backwards. “I know you, okay?” Remus rubbed harshly at his lips with one hand. It almost looked like he was trying to wipe away any memory of what had just happened. “I know you.”

Sirius looked confused. His fingers began digging into the bark of the tree out of fear, and he began to wonder if he had made a huge mistake. “I thought…I didn’t hear you protesting.”

Even in the dark, Sirius could see the blush that appeared in Remus’s cheeks. “I wasn’t, but I’m not going to do this with you. I‘m not going to be your flavor the week.”

“Whoever said…?”

“ _I know you_ ,” Remus repeated, biting each word out this time. “You’ve got a different girl every week…you’ve never been with the same one longer than a month - I’m not going to be the next notch in your belt. I’m not.”

“Moony…” Sirius said quietly, slowly closing the distance between them again. “You’ll never be those things to me. You’re so much more important to me than whatever girl I was snogging last.”

“See?” Remus asked, his eyes still searching Sirius’s, as if they held all of the answers he was looking for. “You don’t even remember her name - which was Summer, by the way.”

“Ah, yeah, Summer,” Sirius said nonchalantly.

“And that’s exactly what I mean.” Remus stepped away from Sirius again. “I don’t want to be ’that bloke’ whenever you find your next conquest.”

“Now you’re the one who isn’t listening to me,” Sirius insisted, stalking closer to Remus. “You could never be that unimportant to me - I’d _never_ treat you like that.”

“Padfoot…” Remus took another step backwards, and Sirius reached out to grab the front of his robes.

“If you go any further, we’re going to be in the lake,” he pointed out, gesturing behind Remus.

Remus’s breath was shaky all of a sudden and he was unable to hold Sirius’s gaze. Remus’s eyes traveled along his friend’s cheek, his nose, and his mouth. Licking his own lips, Remus said, “Maybe I want to go further.” Before Sirius could respond, Remus leaned into Sirius, pressing their lips together once more.

“Moony…” Sirius sighed when they parted for the second time.

“Yeah, you might have told me just once in the last seven years that you wanted to snog,” Remus teased.

Sirius put up his hands, trying to appear innocent. “I didn’t know! Honest I didn’t. But what about you? You never said anything about it either!”

Remus fidgeted, pressing the toe of his shoe into the soft grass underneath. “I didn’t know either…not until you actually did it.”

“Yeah,” Sirius hummed in response. “Not until I came out here and…you look really good in the moonlight. Did anyone ever tell you that?”

“Merlin, no.”

A smile curled itself across Sirius’s lips. “I didn’t imagine so, but you do. And just hearing you talk about how things are going to change once we leave school…” He broke off, shaking his head. “To be honest, it scares me even more than the war to think about us not keeping in touch. You guys are the best friends I’ve ever had and I don’t want to lose that. I can’t speak for Peter or James, but I don’t want anything to change.”

One of Remus’s eyebrows went up and his eyes grew slightly wide. “Padfoot, that’s a hell of a thing to say after we’ve just snogged.”

“I don’t mean that!” Sirius cried. “I mean…I don’t want us to go our separate ways when we leave. That’s what you made it sound like - like we’re all going to have our own lives and never speak again. That’s what some friends may do, but I don’t want that to happen to us. At all. I still want to hang out with you all the time and I still want to spend full moons with you,” Sirius went on. “And that’s _not_ a burden to me or a hassle. It’s what I want to do.”

“So…” Remus said nervously, looking down at the Invisibility Cloak still in his arms. He ran his thumb across the fabric, watching the way certain strands picked up glints of the moonlight. “So that’s what we are? Friends?”

“Of course.”

“Well, friends don’t snog, Padfoot, just so you know,” Remus said, smiling up at his friend.

Sirius ran his teeth along his lower lip. He reached up to run his thumb along Remus’s cheek, the way Remus ran his own thumb along the fabric of the cloak. “We’ll always be friends, Moony. Just now…we’re a little bit more than that.”

Remus grinned at that. “Okay, good. I’d be _really_ worried if we were still _just friends_.”

“Why don’t we just…see where things go?” Sirius asked. “Believe me, I didn’t see this coming, but now that it has…I don’t want it to be over just yet.”

“I don’t either.”

“We’re agreed then.” Sirius’s face suddenly broke into a grimace. “What in the bloody hell are we going to tell James and Peter?”

It was Remus’s turn to make a face, but then he snickered. “I _really_ don’t to think about that right now, but I’m still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that we kissed. Let’s worry about one thing at a time, all right? We can worry about James and Peter later.”

Sirius suddenly grabbed one of Remus’s hands in his. “Okay. I’d like to worry about snogging some more right now, in fact.” He tugged on Remus’s hand, pulling him back across the grass to the shade tree.

Remus went, but then he asked, “What in the name of Merlin are we getting ourselves into?” A hint of worry had worked its way into his voice again.

“Not sure,” Sirius said, entwining his fingers into the front of Remus’s robes again. He leaned back against the trunk of the tree, pulling Remus against him. “But I guess we’ll find out.”

Remus sought out Sirius’s lips with his own, kneading them together, the leaves sighing quietly in the breeze above them. Remus wasn’t sure where this was going either, but this time, the uncertainty didn‘t scare him.

_The end_


End file.
